Page 29 of Keeping Secrets

Lunchtime came and went without Scot arriving, which was bizarre. Usually he came in well before the bar opened to the public. Travis called him, and he cursed as it went to voicemail.

Not coming in was one thing. That was part of the reason he was handing more tasks off to Travis, so that he could rest more and see if decreasing his workload alleviated the strange symptoms that he was experiencing. Maybe they were just the effect of working too hard too late in life.

But not answering his phone, that was something else. Travis finished up the last of his work, then locked up the office before heading out to drive by Scot’s house on the way out of town.

In all of the years that Travis had lived in Pelican Point, he had only been to Scot’s house twice. Once to help him haul out an ancient sofa and carry a new one up the steps, and once to bring Scot some groceries when he was sick, the only time in well over a decade that he had been sick enough to ask for help of any kind.

Travis felt a sense of foreboding as he parked in front of Scot’s house and walked up the pathway. He hoped to find Scot kicked back watching Jeopardy!, imagined how he would scold Scot for failing to answer his phone and Scot would call him a nattering old woman for worrying over him like a grandmother. He pictured the scene in his mind as he walked up the front steps, as if hoping hard enough might make it so.

He knocked on the door, waited a minute, and knocked again. When no one answered, he tested the handle. The door was unlocked, and he let himself in.

"Scot?" he called out.

No answer.

"Anyone here?"

Nothing.

"Scot?" Travis could hear his voice becoming more panicked, and he took a deep breath to try to control his fear. The living room was empty, as was the bathroom in the hallway.

He found him in the kitchen.

Scot was on the floor with blood pooled around his head.

For a second, Travis nearly blacked out. Panic turned the edges of his vision black, and he felt certain that Scot was dead. But a moment later, his logical mind kicked in.

He hurried to take Scot’s pulse and found it, good and strong. The amount of blood was upsetting, but not enough to be fatal. He quickly found the source, a small head wound.

He guessed that Scot had tripped, cracked his head on the counter, and passed out.

Scot was unresponsive. God only knew how long he had been there on the cold kitchen tiles.

Travis grabbed a heavy quilt off of the couch in the other room as he dialed 911 on his cell phone.

"911, what’s your emergency?"

"Head wound," Travis said tersely. He laid the quilt over his employer and then examined his head as he rattled off the address. There was crusted blood in his hair, and the bleeding seemed to have stopped on its own.

Travis was grateful for that, because he was afraid to apply pressure in case the skull was damaged, but it made him sick to his stomach to think how long Scot must have been there alone and bleeding.

He answered a rote list of questions from the dispatcher, then disconnected the call and sat on the kitchen floor with Scot until the paramedics arrived.

When the ambulance pulled up out front, he jumped to his feet and opened the front door, then watched helplessly as they loaded Scot onto the gurney.

He wanted to climb into the ambulance with them, as if he could possibly be of any use to Scot on the short ride to the hospital. Instead, he settled for confirming the destination with the ambulance driver and saying that he would meet them there.

Again, he wanted to jump into his car and rush to the hospital, but he knew it was useless. He wasn’t Scot’s family, not technically, and all that he would be able to do would be to sit in the waiting room, jittery with nerves.

Instead, he went back into the house and cleaned the pool of congealed blood off the kitchen floor. It had gotten onto the blanket as well, so he threw that in the washing machine. Then he packed a bag for Scot: clothes, toothpaste, toothbrush, and the stack of books that rested on the nightstand next to Scot’s bed. Once he had done every helpful thing that he could think of, he walked outside and locked the front door behind him. He knew that there was a spare key in Scot’s desk at work.

Before he drove to the hospital, he called Nick.

"Hey, man, what’s up? I can’t really talk right now, we’re loading the car up with food for the fundraiser tonight."

"I just wanted to let you know that Scot’s in the hospital." Travis’s voice came out flat and disaffected. He felt as if he had gone into shock.

"He what?" Nick exclaimed.